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Patients Pay Tribute to a Murdered Doctor

By Lisa Belkin June 4, 2009 12:43 pmJune 4, 2009 12:43 pm

Flowers are being left outside the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita this week, and at the gated entrance of the Women’s Health Care Services there — all in memory of George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who would still help women who needed abortions late in their pregnancies, and who was murdered on Sunday in the foyer of his longtime church.

This being the electronic age, tributes are being left online too, accumulating around the web in virtual gatherings of would-be parents, all of them Dr. Tiller’s patients, who describe his compassion when they faced terminating their wanted and cherished pregnancies because of devastating health news.

Salon.com is one such gathering place. There Susan Hill, the president of the National Women’s Health Foundation, explains that women in Tiller’s care were there mostly because life had dealt them a crippling blow.

“We always sent the really tragic cases to Tiller,” said Hill, who knew the doctor for 20 years. This included women who were newly diagnosed with cancer and who could not start chemotherapy unless they terminated their pregnancies; women whose babies would be born only to suffer from genetic illness and die; women – no girls – who were victims of rape or incest and who were so young that they didn’t know enough to know they were pregnant until they were many months along.

Salon links to Balloon Juice, another place where stories can be found. One commentator there told of learning – in the eighth month of pregnancy, that the twins his wife was carrying were conjoined, and were connected in such a way that “at best only one child would survive the surgery to separate them and the survivor would more than likely live a brief and painful life filled with surgery and organ transplants.” The man and his wife made their way to the Wichita clinic, and, the father wrote, “the nightmare of our decision and the aftermath was only made bearable by the warmth and compassion of Dr. Tiller and his remarkable staff.”

A commenter on Metafilter tells a similar story, writing: “My wife and I spent a week in Dr. Tiller’s care after we learned our 21-week fetus had a severe defect incompatible with life. The laws in our state prevented us from ending the pregnancy there, and Dr. Tiller was one of maybe three choices in the whole nation at that gestational age. He spent over six hours in one-on-one care with my wife when there was concern she had an infection. We’re talking about a physician here. Six hours…”

And American Prospect is collecting tales, as well, including that of a pregnant 14-year-old, developmentally challenged and clinically depressed, who was threatening to kill herself rather than have the baby. The young woman is now 20, has finished high school, and ”has a committed partner and a young child” according to her cousin, who accompanied her to Dr. Tiller’s clinic six years ago, and who told her story to the American Prospect. “I have no idea what would have happened if we had to go back to her and say, ‘Your only option is to have this baby and put this baby up for adoption.’ I don’t know if she would have made it,” the cousin said, adding that she hasn’t yet found a way to break the news of Dr. Tiller’s death.

I don’t believe in aborting a fetus based on a person just not wanting that baby. I’m a Republican, Christian, mother, sister, and daughter. I was dealt a set of cards back in 1998 that were extremely hard. I had a much wanted baby growing inside of me. I found out around 28 weeks that the baby that I adored, wanted, loved and would die for had a condition and sickness that would if she was born died at birth or lived a very complicated life. Who would want that for their child??? I will never forget my baby…the one that was wanted, the one that was loved…NEVER…but I believe I did the right thing and the doctors believe I did the right thing and Dr. Tiller was there to do that thing…that decision…that hard hard decision.

They are gathering at the website A Heartbreaking Choice, in a section called simply “Kansas Stories.” And on the guest book on the Wichita Eagle website, where testimony and thanks are sprinkled among the thousands of condolence messages. Story upon story of the moment when a lava-lamp like image on an ultrasound screen turned joy into pain. Some anonymous, some with names, all of them grateful. Two, on the Wichita Eagle site, have stayed with me over the past few days:

To the Tiller family;
When I was 6, my mom was pregnant with a child she really wanted. The doctors told her, abut 4 or 5 months in, that if she carried the child to term, she had a 90 percent chance of not surviving. She of course, got an abortion, and I got my mom for an extra 14 years. Mom died when I was 20, and I have such gratitude for doctors like your husband who gave me my mom for those 14 extra, precious years. My heart goes out to you. May you find healing and may his memory live on in those that he loved and those that he saved.

And:

In 2002 I found out I was carrying triplets. My husband did not want me to have them. The day of my appointment I was scared and not sure this was the right decision. They took me back and did an ultrasound. I asked if they all had heartbeats and the nurse said yes. I asked if I would have the chance to talk to the doctor and right away she went and got Dr Tiller. He came in and looked at my babies on the screen. Then he looked at me and said “God gave you these babies, it’s not my job to take them away.” He asked if I agreed and I immediately said yes. He told the nurse to take me to the counter and have them give me my money. You know that day was a turning point for me. I ended up having a great pregnancy and three healthy baby girls. I can never thank Dr. Tiller enough for sending me away that day.

Update from Lisa Belkin: Over on the Slate site, DoubleX, there is a discussion going on between Ayelet Waldman, author of Bad Mother, and NY Times Magazine contributing writer Elizabeth Weil, about their separate first-hand experiences with late-term abortions.

Weil writes of contracting a virus (CMV) at the end of her second trimester that is known to cause profound birth defects:

My unborn son would most likely be deaf, perhaps also visually impaired, and seriously mentally retarded. A doctor friend told me this prognosis could make a child with Down look nearly special-needs-free. But no one could tell us for sure what our unborn son’s health would be like, partly because no good studies existed. Almost all of the women with CMV and sonograms like mine terminated before reaching term.

We agonized but we did not waver; we decided to abort.

That part of the story makes me sad. The next part makes me angry. Nobody at Kaiser San Francisco would do the procedure. They did all the testing. (And let’s be real: The purpose of prenatal testing is to provide information that might result in terminating a pregnancy.) They supported my decision. But, I was told, to get rid of the baby—and please, hurry before he’s viable—I needed to see a guy up in Santa Rosa. So one day we packed an overnight bag, left Hannah with grandma, and drove the hour north. A doctor with waist-length hair and a hippie I-feel-your-pain style performed the surgery. My last memory, before losing consciousness, is of cold tears streaming down my face.

I read about Dr. Tiller on news ofcourse but I did not read about his humanity. This makes me feel soo much worse. I dont think anyone will ever take abortion lightly, but to not have the option at all is just crazy!

The crazy right wing nuts (and yes there are crazy left wing nuts too) quote a very high number of the number of abortions he performed. Why dont they talk about who all in this big number would have severe health problems, who would be causing a mom’s death, who would be born of rape or incest…..

My deepest sympathies to all the lives that Dr Tiller’s life touched, and my sorrow to all those families’ lives he won’t get a chance to touch. The women that may die because he is no longer here to save their lives.

Prior to the death of Dr. Tiller, the anti-abortionists governed the discussion about late-term abortion. They categorized it as irresponsible sluts waking up sometime in the third trimester and deciding to do away with their perfectly viable babies. That has never been the reality.

This tragedy has inspired women everywhere to come out of the shadows and tell their experiences. I sincerely hope that their narratives will drown out the rhetoric of the anti-choice crowd and replace it with the reality that no matter the situation, late-term abortion is often the last resort for the preservation of women and their families.

I wasn’t aware of he nature of most of Dr. Tiller’s cases until now. Truly there was a need, in many of these sad cases, for an option other than birth. Dr. Tiller was able to provide that rare service, apparently in a very humane and appropriate way. He must have known he was a walking dead man after his first shooting attack, but he continued to bravely provide medical services for people who desperately needed them. His assasination has a chilling effect on any doctor who feels the need to provide a controversial but necessary service. Needless to say, this is very very bad for all of us. Laws and actions need to be significantly strengthened in this country to reduce this kind of terrorism that preys on physicians and on vulnerable, desperate patients.

I terminated a wanted pregnancy because of a lethal genetic defect. Fortunately we received the diagnosis relatively early – around 13 weeks, so I did not have a problem accessing safe care for the abortion. I am always grateful that I had that option, and more so after these terrible events around Dr. Tiller’s murder. The people who ended up as his patients came to his office in the very worst moments of their lives, and from everything I read were so fortunate to find a wonderful doctor and staff to treat them with compassion. What a horrible loss.

It’s tragic that Dr. Tiller was murdered, regardless of what you think about his medical practice. Personally, instead of focusing on how many women he has helped, I’d prefer that this story were framed to emphasize that violence is never, ever acceptable. Period.

I never had an abortion. But I did have a pregnancy scare. I can’t stress enough how essential it is to have doctors like Tiller around. Some women are in positions where they can’t always say no before the fact … and can’t tell anyone afterward. People must be brave and not let the crazies who would “kill for life” intimidate them (easier said than done).

I am from a Catholic family. I have had one friend and relative find out they were carrying children with severe defects which were incompatible with life. Both of them chose to carry the fetuses. One died in utero, the other a few hours after it was borh. In both of these cases, it would have been absolutely understandable if they chose to have a late term abortion, and no one else should have had any say in that decision besides the parents. I had no idea so few doctors were willing to perform these procedures until the murder of Dr. Tiller. I have mixed feelings about abortion in general, but in cases such as these it is clear that this option should be available to the women who must make these agonizing decisions. Doctors who are willing to practice compassionate and difficult but necessary medicine such as Dr. Tiller should not have to fear for their lives.

I just don’t know what to say. I learned a year ago about a favorite cousin’s daughter – she was 19, had Down’s syndrome, and was approximately 5-6 months pregnant (from rape) when her parents discovered her condition. They were in living Texas, and took her to Dr. Tiller.

Down’s sufferers have heart problems, and rarely live past their 40’s. My understanding is that the pregnant girl was expected to die in childbirth, along with her baby, because of her heart condition. So, terminating her pregnancy was the only possibility of saving her life, and there was no possibility at all of saving the baby.

I have a teen-age son with autism, and I can’t begin to imagine what my cousin and his wife went through trying to figure out what to do about their daughter’s plight. I know this was the hardest decision they could even have faced. They are/were devout Catholics.

Sadly, tragically, this sweet and loving girl didn’t survive. I’m sure Dr. Tiller did everything possible for her, but as we all know, late-term abortions are high-risk.

My aunt – my cousin’s mother – then did something truly monstrous! She gave every bit of information she had about her son and his family to Operation Rescue. And they compounded the mostrousness by attacking Dr. Tiller, and my cousin and his family – including death threats against all concerned.

People wonder how Dr. Tiller’s work became the object of scorn, anger and ultimately murder. It’s clear that lies and misleading statements, gleefully passed on by groups like Operation Rescue to right-wing media pundits were the devil’s conduit to program the assassin.

And it is also clear that these lies were *profitable*. Profitable in terms of fund-raising by anti-abortion groups eager to promolgate grotesque caricatures of “killer Tiller” and profitable in terms of engaging a frenzied audience marketshare for the purposes of ad and sponsorship dollars. And it worked – they grasped the dollars from misogynistic fools and anti-government bigots desperate to believe that self-indulgent women bored with pregnancy could waltz into Dr. Tiller’s office and aided by a greedy doctor and an incompetent and corrupt government and legal system get rid of a baby. It was propaganda worthy of Goebbels, and it worked perfectly.

The American “heartland” has no heart. It is riddled with ignorance, greed, envy and self-righteousness – an excellent breeding ground for murderers and anarchists. But it is also only “fair and balanced” to also place responsibility on the media pundits and executives who profit by fanning this hate – and most of these people live comfortably on the coasts. The blood of Dr. Tiller is spread across this nation, and will not be easy to wash away.

Thank you so much for collecting these stories, and for posting them on this particular blog. It’s time for a national coming out day for women to tell their stories about their abortions and the real choices they faced in their lives. This is the only way to put an end to the lies the anti-women, anti-abortion fanatics tell about us.

It is difficult to assert that this murder should be framed as a clear case of unacceptable violence because hardline pro-lifers inherently believe that abortion is violent in and of itself. Perhaps what needs to be emphasized is the gray areas of human existence and the personal choices that accompany difficult cirumstances–and in the case of abortion, personal choice as a constitutional right.

Thank you for posting these. I really hope that stories like these will encourage more physicians to fill the very large hole left by Dr. Tiller’s death. Only two other offices are left to serve these unfortunate families.

Thank you for telling these important stories. I know most people haven’t taken a moment to consider the circumstances that lead a woman to terminate a pregnancy after the first trimester. My heart goes out to Dr. Tiller’s family and the families who will no longer have access to the services he offered.

I think it is important to get a fuller picture of the work Dr. Tiller did. He had been dehumanized in so many respects – murder is only the ultimate and final dehumanization. Given the fact that this IS the Motherlode, I think there is a special obligation of the section to give voice to (would be/current) parents who had a chance to interact and work with Dr. Tiller in the profession for which he eventually gave his life. Regardless, anti-abortionists and pro-choice individuals alike should understand what Dr. Tiller stood for (and what doctors like him stand for)…these stories only enrich the conversation.

There should be no question as to the necessity of an abortion in the cases that you have printed. I am a very lucky Mother who had two very healthy children, and pregnancies. And, God willing, they will remain healthy and safe. Abortion is a horrible decision that must be made by a mother or future mother in desperate straits. It is the taking of a life that women have longed for all of their lives. Few woman ever recover from an abortion. The question that I have is, what planet am I living on that men have a single thing to say about an abortion? We have our (mostly male) politicians trying to get votes by promising voters that they are anit-abortion. In my opinion, they have no right whatsoever to be pro or anti abortion. It has nothing to do with them. But as long as we have politicians, and heads of churches and men screaming ANTI-ABORTION, we will have lunatics killing people like Dr. Tiller. This anti-abortion issue with men is a little too much like some of the atrocities women from other cultures experience at the hands of the men they live with. As for the women that have one abortion after another with no remorse, God will mete out their punishment or justice. That is not our business. And murder because of religious beliefs, gee, that sounds familiar. Oh wait, I know, the Taliban!

We see lots of pictures of flowers left at Tiller’s place of business, but where are the pictures of his crematorium?

Yes, there is another holocaust going on, this time in America, of the weak and the defenseless.

As for those who are in the tragic circumstances of an unborn baby with fetal abnormalities, what makes you think what Tiller did, injecting the babies’ hearts with digoxin to bring about a heart attack, is so much less painful for them? (BTW, not all of the babies Tiller destroyed were babies with problems. Many were healthy and were being destroyed out of convenience.)

It is not for any person to decide when someone lives or dies, only God. A generation that decides that it is laudable to kill people in the womb when they are “problems” will themselves be done away with when they become “problems” to others.

I wish that it didn’t take the murder of a good doctor to bring out all these late-term abortion stories. Where was the media, where were all these grateful patients, when Dr Tiller and his staff were being threatened every day for many years?
Why did the medical profession decide that they were going to put the entire burden of performing late-term abortions on him and a few brave colleagues scattered around the country?

Talking about contradictions. Dr Tiller was an usher at a Christian church that, as far as I know, still remain against abortion, no matter what. Or maybe I could be wrong. It looks like this church not only allows abortions, but also same sex marriages. This is the first time that I come to find out that one church and with the name Luther to back it up, now they not only don’t believe in the infallibilty of the Pope, but now are supporters of abortion and abortionists and to top it all, this doctor performed late term abortions that other doctors did not dare to touch with a ten foot pole.
I think that abortion, as with any other sin, is between the person and God, but using abortion as a contraceptive is immoral regardless of circumstances, regardless if doctor Tiller believe to be moral. I don’t know which Bible he read, but I will check to see if it was “made in China” or printed by NOW. Live and learn, says the adage, but I didn’t think that I would see, during my life time, where a church would drop the resistance to abortion and become just another sect, where the whims of the majority rule. Of course, the 5,000.00 charged for every operation was a damn good incentive to try to keep women happy. It is like they never heard of the pill. The way I see it, Dr Tiller was the CIA of the Iraqi war, where morals and the law matter not. The FBI is the other kind of doctors, the ones that don’t go where Tiller didn’t leave. I just can’t comprehend this mixing of Christianity with abortion. It would be like mixing evil and good, it’s not possible, except, I see in the reformation Lutheran church. Martin Luther strikes again. Thanks, Dr Tiller. Let’s know what is at the other side. My feeling is that is really, really hot.

Actually, many of these stories came out during hearings on the federal ban on so-called partial birth abortion, one of the procedures done by Dr. Tiller. Women came forward and told their heartbreaking stories to no avail. Congress followed the wishes of the mindless anti-abortion crowd and outlawed a procedure designed to reduce the risks of late term abortion to the mother.

Dr. Tiller loved life enough to listen to the mothers and ease their suffering. Other doctors must harden their hearts and turn them away, or refer them to someone else to do the operation. I hope that the assassination of this good man brings some reality to the debate, but I am not hopeful given the sad track record.

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We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more